What so sweet as Pagan vows
Whispered in a house of boughs?
Pagan love’s without alloy.
Pagan kisses never cloy.
Arms that cling in Pagan fashion
Never tire. A Pagan passion
Is the only kind I know
That outlives a winter’s snow.
Daphne, Daphne, let us fly!
You’re a Pagan—so am I.
So the fluting on the hill
Passed and died, and all was still.
So the Pagan Pickings died,
And I laid the pipe aside.
THE LAUNDRY OF LIFE
(An Adventure in Sentiment.)
Life is a laundry in which we
Are ironed out, or soon or late.
Who has not known the irony
Of fate?
We enter it when we are born,
Our colors bright. Full soon they fade.
We leave it “done up,” old and worn,
And frayed;
Frayed round the edges, worn and thin—
Life is a rough old linen slinger.
Who has not lost a button in
Life’s wringer?
With other linen we are tubbed,
With other linen often tangled;
In open court we then are scrubbed,
And mangled.